LCD Soundsystem’s massive, highly publicized farewell show has become a bit of a sore subject for some fans following the band’s decision to get back together less than five years later. And James Murphy didn’t make things any easier for them when he sort of implied, during two separate interviews published yesterday and today, that he ended LCD Soundsystem partially to drive ticket sales for said massive, highly publicized farewell show. Here’s what he said in a New York Times profile:

“My theory was, if I make it our last show, we’ll sell it out in two weeks,” he said. The show sold out in minutes. “It wasn’t a total lark, but it was a bit larky,” Mr. Murphy admitted. “But I like making decisions. I find it easy.”

And here’s what he said in an interview with Vulture:

But behind that idea was the promoters’ belief that we just weren’t going to sell any tickets unless there [was] some extra element. So I got mad on the phone with them about it. I was like, “Well, how about it’s our last fucking show?” And I hung up the phone. Then I was like, I guess that’ll be our last show then.

But, as Pitchfork reports, LCD Soundsystem’s Al Doyle has taken to Twitter to clarify Murphy’s comments and to refute the idea that they broke up the band to boost ticket sales:

Hoo-kay. Some commentators extrapolating from the @nytimes article that LCD broke up so we could “make more money off ticket sales”. Oh boy.

— al doyle (@aldoyletweets) August 21, 2017

Few things first… music journalism is mostly about whatever gets you excited & involved. Whatever makes you fired up enough to give a shit.

— al doyle (@aldoyletweets) August 21, 2017

So if an angle can be created whereby a credible star can be seen as manipulative money grubber, that’s a fucken great angle.

— al doyle (@aldoyletweets) August 21, 2017

But it’s an angle. It doesn’t really matter. It’s a tool to sell you something: the story. In this case, a story based on a story.

— al doyle (@aldoyletweets) August 21, 2017

Secondly, none of this shit really matters. *Everyone* is selling you something & you’re either fundamentally ok with that, or not.

— al doyle (@aldoyletweets) August 21, 2017

But thirdly, some of this shit REALLY matters. Because we’re humans who are invested in heroes we admire & we care why they do what they do.

— al doyle (@aldoyletweets) August 21, 2017

So as a very quick insight into what I think is going on here, we need to draw the distinction between inspiration and motivation…

— al doyle (@aldoyletweets) August 21, 2017

Full disclosure: I didn’t know the MSG promoter story, but I was very much around when these decisions were being made.

— al doyle (@aldoyletweets) August 21, 2017

If James got pissed at the promoter and said it was the last show, that was an *inspiration* for the decision.

— al doyle (@aldoyletweets) August 21, 2017

But once the decision is made, it’s a bit of a leap to say the *motivation* behind ending the band is to sell more tickets.

— al doyle (@aldoyletweets) August 21, 2017

To shit on 10 years together and effectively halt at least some of our careers to sell literally a few thousand more tickets for one show.

— al doyle (@aldoyletweets) August 21, 2017

No; the motivation was to make the show something incredible, something singular, strange and unrepeatable. Which it remains, I think.

— al doyle (@aldoyletweets) August 21, 2017

And why would selling more tickets be a motivation anyway? Is it cos folks think we made money on MSG? That show lost A LOT of money.

— al doyle (@aldoyletweets) August 21, 2017

If you’d have bought a ticket for a thousand dollars and arrived by helicopter you’d have *made* more money than any of us on that show.

— al doyle (@aldoyletweets) August 21, 2017

So then it becomes about whether you think it was a 6 year con to raise our profile down the line after faking our own death.

— al doyle (@aldoyletweets) August 21, 2017

That would have been a cool move but… you’d need to be a stone-cold crystal-balled mystical svengali to pull that off. James is not that.

— al doyle (@aldoyletweets) August 21, 2017

Plus, we’re talking about people’s professional livelihoods. That was my job, and it ended. I didn’t think I was getting it back.

— al doyle (@aldoyletweets) August 21, 2017

I’m glad we did get back together, but I understand the obsession with the “WHY” that hangs over the retirement.

— al doyle (@aldoyletweets) August 21, 2017

Even for me, it’s not been fully answered, & I don’t necessarily need it to be. But I do need y’all to know it wasn’t to grub ticket money.

— al doyle (@aldoyletweets) August 21, 2017